1. The significance of the Bible in the early modern period The new turns in all spheres of culture that are regarded as characteristic of modern Europe cannot be understood without reference to the Bible. The new organization of social orders and forms of rule (Authority), education (Bildung) and science (Knowledge), the new impulses in art and literature (Literary institutions) as well as the new interpretations of human self-understanding were played out largely in dialogue with the Bible as the compreh…

[German Version] I. Fundamental Theology – II. Dogmatic Theology – III. Ethics
I. Fundamental Theology Both in fundamental theology and in philosophy, there is considerable dissent as to the justification, significance, and function of consensus (from Lat.
consensus, “agreement, unanimity”). In the philosophical context, the recourse to universal consensus, or to the consensus of all rational people, with respect to controversial claims of truth and validity is found as early as Plato (
Gorg. 487e) and Aristotle (
Top. A1, 100b21–22). Cicero (
Div. I 1;
Tusc. I 36) invokes it …

[German Version]
I. Terminology1. History of the concept. Today the term
theology (ϑεολογία/
theología) is usually used in the sense established in Christianity over a long history: it denotes systematic reflection on and explication of the fundamental content of the Christian faith (see II below), as practiced in the context of academic institutions in the various theological disciplines (see IV below) and in relationship to the Christian community of faith in the various churches. This usage is specific to…

[German Version] I. Dogmatics – II. Ethics
I. Dogmatics In 20th century theological discussion, the concept of
koinonia was used in a programmatic way to characterize the fellowship of the church, but also as a term for the ecumenical communion of churches, and to justify this communion with the nature and work of the Triune God. The foundation of this understanding lies in its correlation with the New Testament's and especially the Pauline understanding of κοινωνία, in which an ¶ already existing understanding of
koinonia in early Christianity's Hellenistic environment, i.e.…

[German Version] (Dec 23, 1889, Winterthur – Apr 6, 1966, Zürich) encountered early on the influence of the Religious Socialism movement in the person of H. Kutter, who prepared him for confirmation and later served as his pastoral mentor. He studied theology in Zürich and Berlin (under A. v. Harnack
et al.) and took his Lic. theol. in theology with his dissertation “Das Symbolische in der religiösen Erkenntnis.” After serving as a teacher in England, curate, and pastor, he received a grant to study in America at Princeton. ¶ Following his habilitation he …

[German Version] The distinction between law and gospel has its theological setting in Luther's discovery at the dawn of the Reformation; from that beginning, it informed the debates within Lutheranism during the Reformation, the attempt to resolve them in the Lutheran articles of faith (I), and the deliberations of Reformed theology. Only in the context of the theological confessionalization in the 19th century and even more in the theological, ecclesiastical, and political debates of the 20th ce…

[German Version] (Apr 4, 1857, Rennersdorf, Oberlausitz – Apr 8, 1940, Frankfurt am Main), theologian, publicist, and politician, representing liberal-social Protestantism. After attending school in Zittau, Rade studied in Leipzig, where he found a teacher and lifelong friend inA. v. Harnack, then a
Privatdozent. In 1881 he gained his doctorate with a dissertation on Pope Damasus, in 1882 he became minister in Schönbach, and in 1889 he married Dora Naumann, sister of F. Naumann. Rade was the author of a popular biography of Luther that a…

[German Version] Insight into the createdness of the world and human beings is rooted in the Christian belief in the triune God as Creator of the world (Creation). The confession of God as Creator must thus be formulated as a statement about one's own creatureliness: “I would believe that God has created me together with all creatures” (Luther,
Short Catechism, art. 1, BSLK 510). Human experience of oneself and of the world is interpreted entirely in the horizon of one's relationship to God. Thus the structures of the experience of life ar…

[German Version]
I. The Concept in Relation to Other Theological Disciplines The task of systematic theology is organized exposition of how the Christian faith interprets reality, with reference to its inherent certainty of its truth (Truth: V; Certainty: III), and the closely associated guidance for action. The word
theology makes it clear that the Christian faith’s (IV) interpretation of reality can be expounded appropriately only on the basis of God’s relationship to the world and to human beings, as disclosed by God for the Christian faith; the addition of
systematic makes it cl…

[German Version] I. Fundamental Theology – II. Ethics
I. Fundamental Theology1. Authenticity, or genuineness, or truthfulness (Ger.
Wahrhaftigkeit), is regarded as being an existential attitude that a person has toward others, toward himself or herself and toward God. Essentially close to understanding truth as a consistency (of
intellectus and
res), authenticity is considered to be the consistency between a person's statements in life and that which is true, or which he regards as true – irrespective of the possibility that what he regards …

[German Version]
I. Philosophy of Religion The theology of religions is dedicated to philosophical or theological reflection on the relationships between religions and worldviews (Weltanschauung). Recently three fundamental types of such theology have been distinguished: exclusivism, inclusivism, and pluralism, which understands all religions as responses, in principle on an equal footing, to the experience of (the one?) transcendence (Uniqueness of Christianity, Dialogue: II). It is questionable whet…

[German Version] I. Old Testament – II. Early Judaism – III. New Testament – IV. Historical Theology and Dogmatics – V. Social Ethics
I. Old Testament Although English Bibles have generally used
kingdom of God to render Heb. מַלְכּוּת/
malkût and Gk βασιλεία/
basileía with a divine subject (genitive), some modern translators prefer instead a purely functional term such as
kingship, without spatial or geographical connotations. Such connotations were definitely implicit in the Hebrew expression, which furthermore is used only in the singular for king…